Relating, Creating, Transforming

Posts tagged ‘depression’

What makes you feel distracted?
What distracts you from being your true self?

Facundo Cabral, Argentine singer, songwriter, and philosopher (1937-2011), once wrote about distraction and depression. Here is an excerpt:

You are not depressed; you are distracted. You believe that you have lost something, which is impossible, because everything that you have was given to you. You did not make a single hair of your head so you can not own anything. In addition, life does not subtract things, it liberates you from them. It makes you lighter so that you can fly higher and reach the fullness. From cradle to grave, it is a school, and that is why those predicaments that you call problems are lessons, indeed.

Liberate yourself from the tremendous burden of guilt, responsibility, and vanity, and be ready to live each moment deeply, as it should be.

Love till you become the beloved, and even more! Love till you become the love itself!

This NT Gospel story is about distraction and about choosing a better way.
Here’s how it goes:

Martha extends cultural hospitality to Jesus. Mary sits and listens to Jesus’ teachings. Martha completes the obligatory tasks of hospitality. Martha complains that Mary has neglected said tasks. Martha asks Jesus to tell Mary to help her. Jesus responds that Mary has chosen the better activity.

This story follows the parable of the Samaritan. This is a parallel tale.
Samaritan story: a dying man on the side of the road, but the obligation to help is not there for priest & Levite. They walk on by. The Samaritan is not obligated either, but chooses to help out of compassion.
Mary/Martha story: Jesus comes to their home. Martha feels obligated, according to the customs of society, to offer food and drink to Jesus. She considers that to be the most important thing. Mary shows hospitality to Jesus also, but not out of obligation. She sits at his feet and listens. Martha’s anxiety over getting the hospitality thing out of the way leads her to possibly resent Mary’s sitting.

Don’t be fooled, though. This is not Martha vs. Mary. Jesus does not rebuke Martha, remember. He simply states that Mary has chosen the better thing, just as compassion is better than obligatory service in the Samaritan story. Mary chooses to love and to show hospitality, but in a way that society did not require. Martha’s hospitality was fine, but it didn’t go the extra step. This is why Martha felt anxiety and was distracted. Or maybe Martha was anxious because she couldn’t find Pokémon?

Also, compare Mary to the Samaritan—both heroes in these stories.

The Samaritan was obviously an unexpected hero who fulfilled the law by acting with compassion. Mary, a female, was an unexpected hero by not filling the typical role for a woman and instead acting out of genuine love and desire to learn; she became a student/disciple.

The thing is, Martha is fine, too, until she lets her anxiety get the best of her. When she calls out Mary, she has stopped being hospitable. Now it’s all about her.

Jesus visits her house, not to praise her for what she does or how well she does it, but instead, Jesus comes to tell Mary and Martha that they are both valued for who they are as children of God.

This is the better thing—to listen to that voice, to embrace your value as a person; to not measure your deeds or to compare yourself to others. When we do that, we get distracted.

My take: we can do a lot of things. We can fill schedules and calendars. We can appear busy. And yet, if life is just about completing those tasks, where will we find love, compassion, and peace? Will our actions just be another thing to check off of a list, will we start to resent others who don’t “work” as hard as we do? Will we ever stop to just sit and listen, which to me, is checking in with ourselves? This kind of life can be depressing and empty.

At the same time, though, it’s not just about sitting and listening. The listening helps us to hear a good word about who we are as human beings—that we are loved and our worth is not measured by what we do or don’t do. After listening, though, we find strength to live, to do good things in the world. Look, this planet we live on is wrought with heavy and sad things—plenty with which to distract us and make us feel more anxiety and worry.

And yet, we can stop to sit and listen. We are capable of that. Sometimes stopping and listening means that you stop talking and actually listen to another person’s point of view or their story without planning how you will respond. Maybe you’ll just listen. Or you may sit for a moment, take a break from your schedule and live a few moments that are unplanned. Or perhaps you need to hear the kind and compassionate voice in the midst of all the heavy and hateful voices. The kind voice says that life matters most above all things, and so anyone’s life in danger is your life in danger. And that is motivation to show love to people at all times; that is motivation to show love to yourself.

So may you find moments to sit and listen in a world that doesn’t seem to encourage that better activity. May you listen to others. May you embrace your whole self, realizing that your value is not measurable by the number of things you complete in a day, a week, or a lifetime. May you not compare yourself to others. May you listen to and embrace compassion, and then may you show it to others.

Blessed are those who do not exchange the dreams of their lives for their daily bread.

―Facundo Cabral, Argentina

Daily bread is the thing we all need to survive.

We need to eat. Sadly, because we’re still not good at sharing, some people don’t always get their daily bread. But even for those of us who do, that daily bread doesn’t last long. The very next day, we’re asking for it again. So it’s important to differentiate between “daily bread” and “living bread.”

To be frank, I’m wondering just how many times we need to talk about bread before we can move on to another metaphor. I get it, though, why the author of John’s Gospel has to have Jesus reiterate it again and again. The crowds in Capernaum or wherever he goes take time to “get” what’s going on. And Jesus’ disciples usually don’t get it either. And we often don’t get it.

So here we go again with bread.

This time, though, John’s Gospel makes sure that we as readers are not confused. He has Jesus say:

Ego Eimi.

Yes, it’s Greek, and it means I AM.

You may be familiar with I AM from the story of the burning bush and Moses encountering G-d. I AM is a “G-d” declaration.

So in essence, Jesus is saying: I AM G-d, and G-d is the bread of life.

The twist is that the divine name of God is now linked to something earthly, i.e. bread.
It’s an inflammatory statement, to be sure. And John wants us to think as much. There’s high drama and conflict here, but not as some paint it, i.e. a battle between “Jews” and “Jesus followers.”

John’s Gospel was reaching out to a variety of people, including Jews, non-Jews, and Jews who were Hellenized or outside of typical Jewish circles. It’s an unfortunate translation to assume that “the Jews” rejected Jesus’ message. It’s better to say that the Temple Authorities of Judea weren’t too happy about it.

Keep in mind that John’s Gospel was most likely written by a Jewish person, about Jewish disciples, and of course, written to promote the message and life of a Jewish Jesus of Nazareth. John was written about the conflicts within Judaism itself and how people saw Jesus. So, yeah—put away the anti-Semitism, please.

Anyhoo….the Judeans, probably overly emotional, got the message wrong. They claimed that Jesus himself said that he was “the bread that came down out of heaven” but actually, Jesus said earlier: “the bread of God is the one who comes down from heaven” (6:33), and then: “I am the bread of life” (6:35).

It happens to all of us. Sometimes we let our emotions take over, and we push aside common sense.

Jesus’ statements were only inflammatory because the temple authorities were looking for something inflammatory. He probably could have said:

I’m Jesus, and I make things out of wood. That’s what carpenters do. How cool is that, Judeans?

And they still would have found fault with it.

Often people [including us] don’t like to wake up to a new reality. We prefer the status quo, even if it’s false. Jesus was trying to help people [including the Judeans] to see a new reality. Jesus uses the phrase “truly, truly” to grab their attention, and what follows is oft-misinterpreted/mistranslated:

Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever ­­­______ has eternal life.

Yes, believeis inserted in the blank as an English translation for a Greek word that really means faith inor trust.

This isn’t about believing in something [like a doctrine or dogma] in order to obtain eternal life.
This is about reorienting one’s thinking in order to live differently and more fully.

So I thought about that, and what that might mean today.

In this life, with all the distractions and all the things that people tell us we should do or think or believe, it’s easy to feel down about it all sometimes, isn’t it? Depression, fear, and loneliness can soon become our realities.

Now, they are real emotions and I’m not discounting that.

But rather than saying “I am depressed, fearful, or lonely” what if we limit them to what they are?
They are feelings.
And if so, perhaps we might be able to see depression or fear or loneliness as mere distractions from what is real.

You see, so much of what we think and do in this world today is not actually what we WANT to do; or even what we feel is right, healthy, wonderful, and life-giving.

We often feel depressed, fearful, or lonely because our behaviors and our lifestyle don’t bring us any joy or fulfillment. We go about daily routines without blinking, even if those routines are killing us little by little.

We are so distracted away from what is truly life.

If you feel depressed, perhaps it is because of something or someone you feel that you have lost. Consider this, however: can we really lose someone or something? Isn’t it true that everything you have was given to you? How can you lose that which was never yours?

Fernando Cabral wrote:

…Life does not subtract things, it liberates you from them. It makes you lighter so that you can fly higher and reach the fullness. From cradle to grave, it is a school, and that is why those predicaments that you call problems are lessons, indeed. You lost nobody; the one who died is just going ahead, because we all are going there. Besides this, the best of him/her, his/her love, is still in your heart.

If you feel fearful, perhaps this is because the unknown is out of your control and so even the very thought of tomorrow becomes something to be afraid of. And yet, tomorrow does not exist. Only this moment does. You are absolutely able to be aware of the present moment, and entirely capable of embracing it as it is. And in doing so, tomorrow becomes less important, because honestly, none of us can know if we will even wake up tomorrow.

And if you feel lonely, first of all, consider that time by yourself is a treasure. Don’t let others tell you that being by yourself is bad. Many people never experience it, because we’re so conditioned to think that being alone is weird or unhealthy. But there is so much you can learn about yourself and the world by spending time alone! You are the only one who truly knows what you feel and what you think; embrace that. And keep in mind that there are billions of others on this planet—not to mention the billions of living creatures all around you. We are not alone.

For me, reorientation and waking up means recognizing feelings for what they are and then allowing myself to be consumed by life itself. It means doing what we love with reckless abandon. It means letting things come to you naturally, and moving with the flow of the world around you. It means being free of shame, guilt, obligation, and grudges—things which only cause harm and separate us. Reorientation means caring for yourself so that you are freer to be your whole self and freer to love others.

In my view, this is what the metaphor of bread of life is about.

Each one of us chooses whether to see this bread [which is life] as freedom, or as limitation.

I choose freedom, and I hope you will, too.

I choose life and fulfillment, and pursuing the things and the relationships that make me happy, challenge me to be a better person, and encourage me to be fully me.

What will you choose? Friends, every day can be a waking up and reorientation day for you. Each moment you can be consumed by life itself.